LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC PHONETIC PRODUCTION PATTERNS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE

The production of sounds by infants from 1 to 12 months is evaluated according to place of articulation to verify the hypothesis that infants' production becomes language-specific towards the end of the first year. This study is based on an analysis of 4,499 sounds produced by 19 infants raised in one of 3 linguistic contexts: Canadian English, Moroccan Arabic, and Bai. Our results reveal that towards the end of the first year (10-12 months), infants show a preference for producing sounds at places of articulation that reflect their linguistic background, a finding that parallels results obtained in perceptual studies. Contrary to our expectations, however, the infants ' production at the end of the first year, albeit language-specific, does not directly correspond to the adult model. In the case of Bai infants, in particular, it was found that these infants use laryngeal constriction at a segmental level, while this phonetic feature is not employed in the adult model at a segmental level but at a syllable/word level for tone register contrasts